Chapter 5
The last sketch was behind the false backing of Camellia’s dressing-room mirror.
Dramatic.
Unnecessary.
Very her.
Rafe removed it.
One charcoal sheet.
My father seated alone.
Older.
Tired.
Holding an envelope.
Across the top, in Eleanor’s hand:
FOR ROLAND, IF JULIAN NEVER COMES HOME.
I stared.
Camellia whispered:
“I didn’t know what it meant.”
Maybe.
The envelope in the drawing was real.
Eleanor had taped it behind the sketch.
Still there.
Twenty-six years waiting.
My hands shook when I opened it.
Roland,
If you are reading this, your father failed twice.
He forced Julian away.
Then he told himself Julian chose exile.
I stopped.
That sounded like my father.
Blame recast as pride.
The letter continued.
Julian did not leave because of Vivienne alone.
He discovered your father had been using his promised inheritance to pressure him into the life chosen for him.
When Julian refused, your father threatened to cut him off completely.
Julian chose freedom.
Your father later regretted it.
But regret without apology becomes another kind of silence.
I closed my eyes.
My father spent years saying Julian abandoned us.
Apparently he had simply refused ownership.
Then one final paragraph:
I drew him because Helena asked me to preserve what this family hides from itself.
If Mavis ever finds these pages, tell her I am sorry I left her a talent attached to so much secrecy.
I looked at Mavis.
She started crying.
Not loudly.
Her mother had written her name.
That mattered more than all the rest.
Then Camellia whispered:
“There’s something else.”
I turned.
Her face had changed.
“My mother contacted Julian.”
When?
“Two years before she died.”
My pulse slowed.
“And?”
“He answered.”
There it was.
My brother had not been unreachable.
He had simply been unreachable to us.
Camellia possessed the address.
She never told me.
Why?
Because as long as Julian stayed absent, the archive remained hers alone.
May you like
My relationship with her stopped feeling complicated.
It became clear.
